A rigged electoral process
In Sunday’s Illum, dated 12 August, the Nationalist Party candidate and lawyer Joe Ellis wrote a damning article wherein he exhorted Frank Portelli and Adrian Delia to quit the leadership race.
Dr Simon Mercieca is senior lecturer, Department of History he reason given was that both have debts. Ellis focused on Portelli’s business venture with St Philip’s Hospital. Nevertheless, even if, one has failed economically, this does not mean that one cannot participate in an electoral race. Being a good political leader and a good businessman are two different cattle of fish. Eddie Fenech Adami was a brilliant politician but I don’t think that he would have had a brilliant career as a solicitor or businessman. There are exceptions. Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump are two such examples.
Definitely, Ellis’ arguments are led by a political reading which has a Marxist and Protestant matrix. His arguments in Illum are reminiscent of Max Weber’s discussion of what makes good Protestant ethics. Such phony arguments should not take hold within a party that, historically, is inspired by universal Catholic principles. The truth is that Ellis is expressing the view of a clique in the PN which is working for the exclusion of two particular candidates.
The basic principle of Catholicism is not failure but the capacity of a person to be able to rise again from the ashes. This is why the phoenix became a Catholic symbol par excellence. Unfortunately, over the past four years, individuals, with political Marxist leanings, have hijacked the Nationalist Party. It was this political stand that landed the Nationalist Party in one of its worst political defeats. These champagne-drinking socialists within the Nationalist Party fear having a leader capable of cleaning up all this ideological mess.
But even the argument made by Ellis, that Delia and Portelli are supposedly failed businessmen, does not hold water in economy. I wish to remind Ellis that the founder of KFC, a very important American chain, was a failed businessman. He opened one business after another and always failed. He persisted. It was only when he reached pensionable age that he made it. This is why KFC’s emblem is the figure of an elderly gentleman. Therefore, the appeal to Portelli to quit is, to state the least, immature and inappropriate.
The same holds for Adrian Delia. It is only aimed to harass and inflict political damage on these two candidates. As this strategy has failed and Simon Busuttil’s clique is afraid of losing all its power, now the Nationalist Party Administrative Council is being dragged in this political controversy to kick Delia out.
However, if one wants to stick to Ellis’ arguments, then, why has Joe Ellis not asked Alex Perici Calascione to quit the race? Irrespective of the results, Perici Calascione will remain dictating policies. Unlike Delia’s or Portelli’s case, none of the PN Liberals asked questions about Perici Calascione’s family history and its connections with Labour’s worst minister, Lorry Sant.
Alex Perici Calascione was Treasurer of a party that gave its General-Secretary a salary of €60,000 per annum. These funds were obtained in a very unorthodox manner from DB. It would seem ridiculous to suggest that Perici Calascione did not know about this deal. Now, I am being told from well-informed sources that the chances are that Rosette Thake’s salary is even higher than €60,000 a year. It would truly be appreciated were Perici Calascione to clarify this point.
The truth is that the General Secretary ended up dragging the Nationalist Party to one of its worst political defeats. The margin or gap of difference between Labour and Nationalist increased during her tenure and the only thing that Thake was capable of doing was to literally snigger at those who advised her to take care of the Catholic voters. Instead, she was given all this money to be in a clique that sidelined the Catholic voter. A number of conservative intellectuals are now speaking publically on Facebook about the way they were treated by the Nationalist Party because of their Catholic views. They were sidelined because they were not atheists. In some cases, these intellectuals offered their voluntary services. In return they were offered mortifying odd jobs. Whether politely or not, they were being told that, not being Marxists, there was no place for them in the party.
Roderick Caruana went on Facebook and told his story, after the Electoral Commission closed ranks and shut the door in his face. Caruana wrote a letter to the Commission to state his case. It was to no avail. Caruana even went to meet the Commission. He recounted the outcome of this meeting in a video blog that went viral on Facebook. His testimony confirms that all the members of this Commission are far from being super partes and all clearly hold a vested interest to back two particular candidates.
Is Roderick Caruana the odd one out? No, he is not. The problem is that there are a number of individuals who, according to the PN statutes, have a right to vote, but are being denied such a fundamental basic right. There are also a number of members of the PN sectional committees who are not being allowed to vote, despite the fact that the Statute clearly states that they are entitled to vote in the general assembly. I am even told that there is at least one case where votes belonging to members of the sectional committee were given to outsiders in lieu of the members of the sectional committee! Then, members of the sectional committee of the club, where such a case has taken place, ended up without the right to vote. Instead of investigating, the Commission is condoning such an irregular practice. I wish to remind the readers that, according to Perici Calascione, this Commission has some of the greatest minds of the party.
Instead of giving justice where justice is due, the Commission - set up to make sure that the process is transparent - has become synonymous with negativity. Yet there is more to this negativity than just simple exclusion. It seems that the clubs in areas and districts considered liberal are less immune to political discrimination. The different sources tell me that individuals from at least one particular area had no problems to get the right to vote after approaching the Commission. Problems primarily appear most with those PN committee members, who are either labelled as confessional and/or are coming from staunch Labour districts. Why?
In the face of Roderick Caruana’s serious allegations, would Joe Ellis demand the resignation of the PN Electoral Commission? Would the PN Executive meet to investigate the blatant bias of its Chairman towards two candidates in this electoral race and the vote rigging that has taken place?
Roderick Caruana’s case does not only confirm that this election is rigged but worse, shows that the PN is more and more a party of lawyers, the Maltese type, where power is only affirmed and exercised in the way they say no to rightful requests of honest people, in particular, if they hail from Malta’s south.